I have a garage that my car will not fit in, so I am thinking of taking the up n over door off and replacing it with tongue and groove. Then putting a house style front door in and making a small work area. My question is are there any planning regulation that will stop me from doing this. Can my neighbour complain to the council etc.
Tony
Probably wont need planning just building regs but need to check. Your neighbour can complain to the council about anything but wether the council listens or does anything is up tpo them If it doesnt need planning your neighbour can do very little about it and even if it does they can only make an objection which in your case I doubt the local authority will entertain
Why not do what many do and simply leave the garage door in place and build a partition wall immediately behind it? Make the door around the corner out of sight and you have what you wish whilst maintaining the same look as other houses.
I was on a council built estate where all the houses had garages sort of sticking out the front, and all of them had been converted into living accommodation. I'd guess they were all too small for any sort of car other than an original Mini.
As you are not altering the structure of the building or its general appearance,no regs requires or planning.unless of course your a listed property.If this is a new build there may be restrictive covenant,requiring the garage doors to match,but doubtful
If the house was built in the recent past (say, the last 25 years or so) then the original builder may have put a clause on the property that any work which changes the presentation or design of the property must be okay'd by them first. This can even extend to changing the colour of the windows and eaves. You pay the builder a small fee to consider your plans, and then they rubber stamp it (or not, as the case may be).
I know we've got such a clause on our property which is about 8 years old. House was built by Martin Grant Homes and ISTR the fee was £25.
The stated purpose of this caveat is that the original builder wants to make sure you aren't going to negatively impact the designs he has made available. But the real reason as we know all too well is that the builder wants his own little income stream trickling in.....
PoP
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That's exactly what I did - remember that a metal door is very thermally conductive, so you need a decent layer of insulation between the door and the partition. If the inside is heated you will also get a lot of condensation on the surface of the door.
Well I live in MG house and they told me they are not interested in these covenants when the houses are more than 10 years old poss even earlier if they are not doing any more development in the area. The LA will not enforce them either, its down to other householders to bring a civil action. So all in all they are a waste of time. You can pretty well ignore them with impunity as most people round here seem to.
However, if you change a garage to a habitable room as many of my neighbours have done, then building control is very interested in insulation to floor etc. The cost can be non-trivial. This is what the neighbours might make the LA aware of.. Also someone near here tried to run a buisness in his converted garage and fell foul of the planning regs...
The other issue that comes up with some local authorities with respect to doing anything to a garage is if it impacts off-road parking. In other words if you do something that results in extra cars appearing on the public road outside the house it may cause interest.
.andy
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Yes, I had issues with this in my last house. I was told that an application to convert my garage wouldn't be open and shut because a house of that size required 2 spaces according to the local plan. A space had to be 2.4m x
4.8m. Unfortunately, my drive was 60cm too short to park two cars, so the garage was officially part of my allowance. The fact that the garage (as all garages are) was full of junk and there was tonnes of off road parking wasn't important.I'm not complaining, though. They said there was a reasonable chance of success and no fee was payable. I just never got round to it before moving.
Christian.
You'll need that in writing when you come to sell, if the buyer's solicitors are doing their job, as a friend of mine recently found out. His developer charged something like £25 for the letter, but as you say, couldn't actually care less about the modifications.
They usually want the garage floor and wall up to a foot or so painted with a couple of coats of Synthaseal.
What is all this the government is on about then, about working from home, etc, etc. I can understand if the man was holding large stocks or having 6 cars permanently parked outside.
It's usually called hypocrisy.
.andy
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More the right hand doesn't know what the left had is doing. Westminster promote home working and the LAs revert to pettiness, sticking to laws passed before Westminster dictated. You would probably find that the LA is wrong, not conforming to Westminster's dictates.
You'll probably find that they're conforming to what Westminster actually writes down, rather than what it says.
-- Richard Sampson
email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk
I think that you'll find that you cannot (generally) run a business from your home (without planning permission from the LA, ie plumber, builder, anything self-employed), but that there are no restrictions to "working from home" WRT being employed by someone else and doing their work for them (ie. office work, book-keeping, sewing garments etc.etc).
I work from home and the rules as I understand them are that if the 'office' is dual purpose, i.e. it has a domestic use as well as business then it is OK. Once you have a space in which the sole use is business then you get clobbered with business rates and planning issues. My IT business runs from my home without any hassle - where as my friends pottery/carpentry gets clobbered.
as my old dad always said 'nothing is fair in this world'
Jay
Set up a company based elsewhere, and then work from home. A plumber can be based at his home, as his work is elsewhere.
Nice idea, but they are wise to that one. For example, it's no good just establishing a limited company and using the accountant's address as the registered office. They look for where trading is actually happening. So for a lot of businesses, the only way round it would be to have an industrial unit or office somewhere (which costs of course), and then work from home "occasionally". It is easier for a sole trader like a plumber, as you say. With respect to the LA, a lot of the issue is the profile that you have. If you make a big negative visual impact on the surroundings then people will notice.
.andy
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Thanks for all your advice. I think I will put in a second side door and block the up n over door form the inside. What nobody knows wont hurt um eh.
Cheers
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